Turns out, he was hiding an even deeper secret, he told ESPN‘s Jeremy Schapp in a recent interview: He was sexually assaulted as a child. About the age of 7, Tyson says he “was grabbed by a man who tried to pull him into a building, but wouldn’t go into details about what was done to him,” the New York Daily Newswrites.

When questioned further, Tyson, 51, demurred, saying, “Well I don’t like to talk about that, I like to keep that where it was in the past, but I was molested as a child.”

But he added that the experience “made me have to be tough for the world I lived in.”

Indeed that pain and so-called toughness played out in the headlines in a multitude of ways, including allegations of spousal abuse, serving time in prison for rape, and in the boxing ring when he famously bit off a chunk of Evander Holyfield‘s right ear.